


We could sing our own, but what would it be without you?

by kaaterinapetrova



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Artist Steve Rogers, Avengers Family, Awesome James "Rhodey" Rhodes, BAMF Natasha Romanov, Bruce Banner & Thor Friendship, Bruce Banner Is a Good Bro, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Clint Barton Is a Good Bro, Family, Fix-It of Sorts, Friendship, Gen, Immortality, Infinity Gems, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark Friendship, James "Rhodey" Rhodes is a Good Bro, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Protective Natasha Romanov, Team as Family, Thor (Marvel) is Not Stupid, Tony Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 11:55:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18468448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaaterinapetrova/pseuds/kaaterinapetrova
Summary: Tony cradles the gun easily, weighs it heavily within his fingers before he puts it in his mouth.He pulls the trigger.(Or Thanos snaps his fingers and the Avengers pay the ultimate price to get the universe to rights again. And in so doing, they find their way back to each other.)





	We could sing our own, but what would it be without you?

**Author's Note:**

> So, I've had this idea for a while and though I know I'm not gonna write anymore for it, for a while yet, I still wanted something concrete down, so I could go back to it. This is more of a drabble series, focused on the Avengers and their relationships with each other, rather than something like my other plot-heavy fics. I wanted to explore something emotional, I guess, lol, as if Endgame wasn't already enough.
> 
> I hope you enjoy it! Thank you for reading! :D

It’s the sharp, glinting eyes and the curve of a half smirk that stay with Tony later.

After Nebula beheads Thanos, screaming something into his face, his head rolls on Titan’s red ground and falls somewhere between a rock and shards of a moon. The blood coats Nebula’s gleaming blade, but Tony’s gaze stays only on Thanos’ head, as everyone around him shifts. The air is ringing with a perturbed silence that nobody dares to break, as they just stare, hardly able to believe it.

Thanos’ eyes are open.

They stay fixed on Tony, as though they know things. Tony swallows hard, remembering the Titan’s words about the stones he’d wielded so furiously. _There will always be a price and I have paid mine_. His last words linger in Tony’s head, as they all turn back to the gauntlet, watchfully. Natasha and Nebula are staying by Thanos’ side, but Thor and Steve have already moved towards the gauntlet, eyeing it carefully.

The stones are glowing restlessly, flickering within the gold of the melted gauntlet, the Avengers staring warily.

“Well?” Tony says, his voice echoing too loudly amidst the remains of the planet. He takes a few steps forward, the heavy metal boot crunching on the sands, swallows hard, and reaches for the gauntlet, his heart stuttering. “Here we go, then—,”

“Tony, wait.”

Steve steps forward, towards him, reaching out a hand, and Tony stumbles back immediately, metal scraping against the hard sands. He swallows down the instant panic threatening to devour him whole, the mask of impassive distaste smoothing itself over his features easily. Natasha and Clint wince, the distant gaping chasm between them all growing wider, and though Bruce and Thor still don’t know the full story, even after months, Tony feels the latter’s gaze linger on him, his neck feeling particularly exposed even though he’s in the suit.

Bruce clears his throat first. “We don’t know if this will even work,” he agrees quietly, and though Tony _knows_ that this isn’t another fight between them, that they’re not taking sides, he still feels a slight sting.

“We said we’d at least try to reverse the effects,” Tony argues, his eyes turning to Nebula who is cleaning her sword and staring hard at Thanos’ dead form. “No matter what it took.”

Natasha’s voice is low and careful. “Even so, it’s wise to keep our distance from something we don’t know,” she says. “You heard what he said about a price to be paid.”

“We can’t just sit here and wait for the world to get better,” Clint says. “And there’s always a catch. We knew that, coming here.”

When the stones gleam and flicker a little more, their glow casting colours across them all, Tony sees Thor stiffen slightly. He tenses in return, fingers twitching as the repulsors charge briefly, but Thanos is still. Nebula’s head tilts as she stares at the stones and Thor breathes hard, his gaze narrowed.

“They are speaking,” Thor says.

Tony’s mouth dries, as their heads turn immediately, at the same time. They’re all lifting their respective weapons, barring Thor and Nebula, in defence as Tony stiffens, his eyes fixed on the stones before them. He strains, but he can’t hear a single thing, though it looks like Thor and Nebula are listening intently.

“Of course they are,” Bruce says, somewhat hysterically. “What are they saying?”

“You can’t hear them?” Thor blinks.

Tony’s voice is dry. “None of us speak Infinity Stone, Rosetta Stone,” he says. “Mind translating for us?”

The stones gleam and whisper, in a way that makes everyone tense defensively. Tony, already fraught, almost hits the gauntlet, stopping himself just in time, as the soft sibilant sounds echo around the empty planet. Colours cascade brilliantly all around them and Thor’s brows narrow, Nebula’s eyes sharp.

“ _You wish to return to the world before, but that is impossible. Things must, as they always do, go on_ ,” Thor translates. He’s frowning as he speaks, lifting his head to look at them and give them sheepish smiles. It’s almost startlingly reminiscent of the old times on Earth, Tony thinks for a moment, before he catches himself. “A loose translation, I’m a little rough in the languages of the ancient universe. That was always Loki’s speciality.”

 _That and faking his death_ , Tony doesn’t let himself say. Instead he nods towards the god appreciatively as Steve reassures Thor that they were grateful for his efforts. Natasha’s brows are knitted together in thought as she stares at the stones before them.

“How do we fix it then?” she murmurs. “Half of the universe is ash and dust, and now the things that made it so can’t stop it?”

Nebula’s voice is throaty. “That’s not what they say, Terran,” she says brusquely. “You can’t return to before. After is all we have.” She rolls her eyes at their blank looks. “A price must be paid, if you want to go on. Are you willing?”

There’s no hesitation.

They’ve always known that there’s a possibility they could die and though Tony would prefer to die later—like, _much, much_ later—, he knows that this was always coming. If he’s going to die here, Tony thinks to himself in the darkest, softest corners of his mind, he doesn’t really mind that it’s with the Avengers. All of them nod.

Steve speaks. “Yes,” he says. “Always.”

The stones gleam, facets shining like mirrors. Nebula tilts her head, as though listening intently, and repeats back to them, “ _Are you sure?”_

Tony’s heart is hammering so hard he thinks it might break apart his rib cage and kill him right there. He’s not looking at any of them, gaze focused hard on the stones before them, and though he’s surrounded by the people he once vowed to lay his life down for, the people he thought would return the favour happily, he feels completely alone. The world blurs and screams in his ears, a coldness lingering all over him, as Tony swallows.

He tastes something in his mouth. They’ve gone too far to come back now, he thinks, and Tony lifts his head. He looks at Nebula and nods.

The world blinds him.

.

.

When he’s out, he dreams.

They all do. Wisps of pale colours, of light reds and soft violets and pastel pinks, a burning sensation that spread to all their nerves, cracking apart their bones to ash and dust, a bittersweet taste lingering thickly in their mouths. When they wake, they wake together and apart, hot and cold and perfect all at once.

Tony wakes back in the Tower, with the Avengers, the world back to rights. They all wake with each other, blinking at each other, before running to the window to see everything back in order. The news channels reeling with the return of the dusted ones, the Avengers’ triumph. Clint is whooping with delight, Tony clamouring for shawarma to celebrate, when Natasha stills.

“Does everyone feel… alright?” she demands, voice tight.

It’s like a bucket of cold water to the senses, the reminder of what happened on Titan falling over them all. Nebula is gone, but everyone else is here. It’s almost like the old days all over again, but Tony knows that they’ll never have the old days back. Everyone’s staring at each other, Tony taking a not-so-discreet step back away from them all, the reminders of their fights and betrayals and pain filling the chasms between them. There’ll be no shawarma tonight, he thinks to himself and his heart aches a little at that.

“Can—can we use the medbay, Tony?” Bruce is asking, his voice careful.

Tony swallows tight and nods. “Yeah. Yeah, sure.”

None of them realise what price the stones had extracted from them first. They’d all examined each other, with only Bruce and Tony as their doctors, as none of the Avengers trusted any other. Tony was stiff and unflinching all throughout the examination, the jokes slipping easily, unhindered, out of his mouth the longer he continued to sit still, eaten up by anxiety.

Natasha had been scrutinising, Clint antsy, Steve calm as ever. Thor had been uncharacteristically quiet, but nobody commented, knowing that he still mourned, even months later. All of them had been concerned, but they could find nothing at all.

If anything, they’d felt perfect.

Just fine, Tony thought to himself as he rolled back his shoulders, stretching out his arms properly for the first time in years. He couldn’t even hear his joints creak as they usually did, the sound of his knees not popping making him smirk a little. No longer did he feel the heavy weight of anxiety and stress and old age creeping up on him. Even so, he’d have Friday check them all out again, he reasons to himself.

.

.

Weeks pass and things change.

Pepper and Happy leave, as Tony had always known they would. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t mourn their loss for so long as he does, but he rather thinks it’s because Rhodey takes him out to celebrate and shouts, from the Tower to a bunch of cheering Stark Industries employees, “Good riddance to bad rubbish!” Tony takes back Stark Industries, starts building more suits, more inventions. They’ve had a bout of good press because of the whole saving-the-universe thing and the board is grateful to see him back at the helm, after Pepper’s disastrous efforts at the position of CEO.

He keeps some tabs on the others, unable to help himself.

Steve is back in Brooklyn. Four days in an art studio, two at the Smithsonian, one at a graveyard when he’s finished with his therapist. Clint and Natasha are underground, but Tony has heard reports of a dark-haired man, with eyes sharper than a hawk, and a red woman, with a right hook better than the former, raising hell through the entirety of North America’s bars. Bruce is in Mozambique, with Thor and Doctors without Borders, healing people and working through Thor’s grief.

Nebula doesn’t come too often, but when she does, Tony keeps his liquor cabinet fully stocked and lets the bots come out of the workshop. She’s very fond of DUM-e, to U’s frustrated jealousy. Though Tony asks, she never tells him the price they had to pay.

In the end, she doesn’t have to.

Tony is in the workshop when it happens. He’s hammering out the dents in the suit, some routine check-up or other, swallowing down the green smoothie he’s been making himself drink, when Friday says something. It all happens in a split second, Friday’s lilting voice blurring in his ears, as pain screams through his hand, the metal hammer gleaming with red.

He’s shouting something inaudible, the pain of it all almost making him pass out as he collapses to his knees, clutching his hand. The world spins and grows dizzy around him, but Tony has to focus on breathing, sweat lining his forehead. And then, slowly, the pain begins to fade away.

When he blinks, his hand is unmarred, dried blood staining the knuckles.

Tony stares in horror, his eyes wide as the world tilts itself back upright again. Friday is saying something, but he can’t hear her over the blood thundering in his ears, DUM-e is poking him incessantly, but Tony can barely register the bot. He lifts his hand, turning it around, but the pain is completely gone, the flesh already healed over. It is as though nothing happened at all.

But it _did_.

His head snaps around, gaze turning back to the hammer on the ground. Blood still drips off the gleaming metal, the shiny surface glowing back at him almost mockingly. Tony breathes hard, collapses on the ground as he stares at the hammer before his hand again. Friday is screaming in protest when he reaches for the hammer again.

The pain is blinding, but it only takes up his world for a blinding second before—

“Fuck.”

Tony blinks at his hand, perfectly healed once more.

.

.

So, in return for half of the universe, he discovers, the Avengers gave up themselves.

“Isn’t that the _why_ we fight? So we can end it?” Tony Stark had once argued, and the price the universe had demanded was that it would _never_ end. Not for them, at least. There’s got to be a joke in there somewhere, Tony thinks to himself humourlessly, his head resting on his wall.

He’s shut away Friday and the bots, papers and screens flickering all around him. All of them filled with scrawled calculations, experiments, untouched ideas. Until Nebula had arrived, taken one look at him, and said, “Took you long enough.”

It was a heavy price indeed, Tony knows. They have to be the butt of the universe at this point, some punchline to a joke Thanos began. He breathes hard again, his eyes watering tiredly. Everything within him is completely drained, shoulders slump and stomach clenched in exhaustion. He clings to this feeling desperately, with both hands, barely able to see past the blinding pain.

Thanos had taken the stones, had snapped once. He’d paid his price, one that they were not privy to know.

The Avengers had taken the stones, had begged. They’d paid their price and so, immortality and invincibility had touched them. It wrapped around their bones, seared itself deeply into their flesh and muscle, until they were all soaked in gold and eternity.

An eternity, stuck with himself, Tony thinks to himself. What could be worse than that?

He cradles the gun easily, after a lifetime of handling weaponry that could never be more powerful or deadly than him. Tony weighs it heavily within his fingers, his eyes burning as his chest aches in pain, and he puts it into his mouth. His cheeks are wet, his shoulders heavy, and the world screams at him.

Tony pulls the trigger.

**Author's Note:**

> Some notes. The Guardians, Strange, Peter, Wanda, Vision, and others don't really exist in this fic - it's just 2012 Avengers, and after Infinity Wars. Nebula's here, too, mostly because I think, in every universe, she deserves to be the one to kill Thanos. It's all very confusing, lol, I know, but I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.
> 
> Thank you! :D


End file.
